Catalogue 2010 - daxer & marschall

HENRI-JOSEPH HARPIGNIES
The Pont des Saints-Pères in 1870
Henri-Joseph Harpignies
(Valenciennes 1819 - 1916
Saint-Privé [Yonne])
The Pont des Saints-Pères in 1870
(seen from the Tuileries Gardens, with
the Dome of the Institut de France in
the Background)
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated lower left
H Harpignies 1870
182 x 89 cm
Henri-Joseph Harpignies, Paris from the Bois, 9.5
x 7.5”, signed and dated H.Harpignies Mai 1870,
Cleveland Museum of Art.
Provenance:
Paris, Hôtel Drouot, anonymous
sale, 20 January 1908;
Arnold et Tripp, Paris;
Paris, Hôtel Drouot, Vente Tripp,
9 February 1934, lot 58;
Marlière Collection, Valenciennes
Exhibited:
Harpignies, Valenciennes, Musée
des Beaux-Arts, 1934, no. 18;
Harpignies, Maubeuge, Musée des
Beaux-Arts, 1977, no. 10, repr.
62
Henri-Joseph Harpignies’s long life spanned many of the major movements in nineteenth-century
painting. As he set out on his career the painters of the Barbizon School were emerging to challenge
the traditional view of landscape painting and called for it to be elevated to the same status as history
painting. Later, Harpignies witnessed the arrival of the Realist movement, and the rise of both
Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. Although he was keenly interested in these movements and
came to be influenced by them to some extent, analysis of his work shows that he remained indebted
to the artistic influences of the first half of the nineteenth century. In this, he can be likened to his
friend and mentor Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. His love for Rome and the surrounding countryside,
coupled with his fondness for the classical landscape tradition, dominated his whole œuvre.
He studied under Jean Archard (1807-84). He visited Rome for the first time in 1850,
staying at the Villa Medici. He spent two years studying in Italy, concentrating on the landscapes of
the Campagna Romana. He also chose motifs from urban environments and on his visits to Naples
produced a number of views of Vesuvius. He was particularly drawn to Capri, where he worked for
six months. The influence of the island’s landscapes on his painting was powerful and it was his View
of Capri that was to mark his successful début at the Paris Salon in 1853.
A second visit to Italy in 1863-5 included a close and lengthy study of Corot’s landscape
paintings. In 1866, Harpignies’s first major work, Evening in the Campagna Romana, brought him official
recognition and established his reputation. The painting is now in the collection of the Louvre.
He was to receive numerous public honours throughout his career and a great many of his works
were acquired by public collections.
After his studies in Italy and his return to France, his style reached maturity of expression
with rich, bold colour marking his best period. He spent considerable time in the Burgundian countryside
of the Yonne near the Canal du Nivernais. He moved to Burgundy in 1878.
This view of the old Pont des Saints-Pères – the new bridge is known as the Pont du Carroussel
1 – was executed shortly before the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Although
the composition is carefully structured, the exhuberance of the brushwork lends it spontaneity. The
view skilfully suggests that the choice of motif was spontaneous. A repoussoir effect is achieved by the
placing of the trees at the sides of the composition. The viewer’s eye is led from the shade of the
trees through a bright gap towards the bridge glinting in the sunlight in the middle ground. Above
the bridge rises the distant silhouette of the dome of Louis Le Vau’s celebrated Institut de France.
The Cleveland Museum of Art holds a watercolour by Harpignies executed in the same year which
depicts a similar motif. 2
1. The old Pont des Saints-Pères was built in 1834. It was a wooden and iron construction unsuited to increasing traffic volumes. It was
replaced by a new structure in 1935-9. The appellation ‘Pont du Carroussel’ was already in use in the nineteenth century.
2. Cleveland Museum of Art, Paris from the Bois, 9.5 x 7.5”, signed and dated H.Harpignies Mai 1870. See Henri-Joseph Harpignies. Paintings
and Watercolors, exhib. cat., Memphis, Tennessee, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, December 3, 1978 – January 14, 1979, no. 3, repr.